Baptism: A User's Guide

by Martin E. Marty

To see baptism as merely a ceremony greatly limits the meanings of Christian baptism, says Martin Marty, in this practical and inspirational new look at baptism. Martin Luther recommended that believers should begin and end their day reminding themselves of their baptism and then go to work joyfully or to sleep cheerfully.
Baptism, says Marty, is at the heart ofthe everyday, life-long spiritual journey as he explores such questions
How did early Christians understand and practice baptism?
What difference does baptism make in our daily life?
How does baptism manifest itself in our relationships, our choices, our faith?

With great insight and wisdom Marty brings us both the history of baptism and a useful guide to its application for everyday life. The book includes questions for reflection and discussion.

Genres: Religion, Christian, Theology, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Martin E. Marty was an American religious scholar and historian known for his extensive work on religion in the United States. A Lutheran pastor before transitioning into academia, he became a leading voice in religious studies, particularly in the areas of American Protestantism, fundamentalism, and public religion. He was a longtime professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he mentored numerous doctoral students and held the prestigious Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professorship.
Marty wrote or edited a book for nearly every year of his academic career, producing influential works such as Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America, which won the National Book Award, and the five-volume Fundamentalism Project, co-edited with R. Scott Appleby. He was a prolific columnist for The Christian Century and wrote extensively on religion's role in American public life.
A recipient of numerous honors, including the National Humanities Medal and over 80 honorary doctorates, Marty also served as president of several academic societies and participated in U.S. presidential commissions. The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago was named in his honor.

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent breakdown of the baptism portion of Luther's Small Catechism, taking one line at a time.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to know about Baptism and what it means to the believer this is the book that spells it out in detail.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two and half stars.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An acceptable choice for a parish book group, which is why I'm reading it--apparently I'm on the Spiritual Formation Commission, on the strength of having volunteered to choose a book for the first discussion group. Martin Marty is a well-known historian of Christianity, and he certainly seems to know his stuff. This is a good survey of baptism, taking it from the biblical and theological perspective to application to daily life through prayer and practice. I'm not sure he accomplishes one of his stated aims, explaining baptism to the unbaptized and unchurched, but it's a nice starting place for discussion. He takes a historical and a scriptural approach, and surveys both the Gospels and a bunch of epistles.

Two serious weaknesses: He doesn't give much credit to unbelief, or nonbelief, and he never discusses the meaning or consequence of loss of belief, or even the challenge, danger or reward of doubt for the baptized Christian. Close to the end of the book, he urges the newly baptized, as well as the mature Christian, to go out and share their faith. Now, as an atheist-by-birth who got heavily evangelized through adolescence, I will say that I've heard few arguments for faith that made sense to me and almost none that didn't make me feel, well, a bit more hostile than the well-intentioned evangelist deserved. All that holier-than-thou stuff probably wasn't intentional, after all...

Equally as important, and far more damaging, is his disdain for religions other than Christianity. In over-emphasizing the Great Commission (to "go and make disciples of all nations"), he flat-out says that most of humanity--everyone who is not Christian--is unaware of their sins and unsure of what to do about them. Say what? Jews, Muslims unaware of their sins? Buddhists, Hindus unaware? My mother the atheist, unaware?

Marty repeats and repeats that baptism is not "magical;" it confers an experience of "grace," and magic would be "unacceptable." Unacceptable how? Okay, we're not into witchcraft, but then what is "grace?" What is this "experience?" What does it feel like? What does the brain go through? What does the individual see, smell, hear, taste, feel, sense internally when undergoing this grace? And if this grace is an "experience" conferred by God through this ritual, then is this ritual not, in some sense, magical? "Only the magic and the dream are true," wrote Jean Rhys--only that mystery that confuses, undoes us, removes us from the safe, the known and knowable, familiar world, into the dangerous realm of God, where we see God face to face. And if the ritual works--if the grace occurs, if this magical experience happens--then baptism, like any effective religious ritual, is indeed dangerous, as Marty says. But it is experience, not theology, that makes it effective--which in the end is Marty's point, although I think his experience and mine are different.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pithy little pamphlet on the meaning and practice of the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Marty is an scholar of Christian history and so interacts with the Tradition. But this isn't a word to scholars, but to church people about what Baptism is.

[Farmgirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eloquent treatise on the Lutheran concept of baptism. I wish that I had read it years ago. It gave me a new appreciation for my baptism and my responsibilities as a baptismal sponsor.